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Spain
History The Romans in Iberia Latin culture in Iberia would not be established well until after the Second Punic War. While the Carthaginians did gain initial success in their war against Rome, the Romans ingeniously attacked the Carthaginians in their homeland and in a stunning victory at Zama, forced the Carthaginians to cede all of their colonial possessions, including Iberia, to Rome. The Romans would extend their control over the region beyond the Carthaginian colonies into the rest of the Iberian peninsula over the next two hundred years, finally managing to pacify the Peninsula b7 27 BC once and for all. Iberia was subsequently divided into three provinces: Tarraconense and Baetica (present-day Spain) and Lusitania (roughly present-day Portugal). The Romans did not only leave their imprint in the region administratively, but even successfully established their culture over the occupied tribes therein. Every aspect of Iberic culture was effected, if not completely supplanted. Family and social life (including the love of gladiatorial games, which was eventually replaced with the festive bullfights for which Spain used to be famous for) to law, language and religion (Christianity being eventually introduced into the region) through the process of Latinisation. The only exception was the Basque, or Vasconians as they were called. All Iberic citizens were granted Roman citizenship, and enjoyed the same rights as those who were natives of Latium. The Iberians would even offer one of their own brethren, a soldier known to us as Trajan, as a Roman Emperor. Trajan would not only became the Emperor of the Roman Empire, but one of its most successful and celebrated rulers. The Visigothic Kingdom Barbarian incursions became more and more prevailent as Roman authority sputtered out over the course of the Dark Ages. The Franks and Suevi invaded the country in 264, and even managed to temporarily occupy Tarragona. By the 5th Century, a host of Germanic barbarians from the Alans to the Vandals (who gave their name to the Andalusian region of Spain) were running rampant all over the Roman Empire, but it was the Visigoths who would eventually take over Iberia. As the influence of Rome waned, the Visigoths essentually had their own kingdom and established Toledo as capital in 484. Over eighty years later, the Visigoth king Leovigild expelled the imperial civil servants and attempted to unify the Peninsula from the Pyrenees to Gibraltar, which formed natural barriers from which Spain would hold as its borders to this day. They were more or less successful in their unification efforts, except in the north, where the Basques, Cantabrians and Asturians managed to hold out against them. Trade connection with the Byzantine Empire allowed Spain to maintain its urban culture and its commercial and cultural connections within the Mediterranean domain, against the tide of fragmentation and chaos of Dark Age Europe. By the 7th century, however, the Visigothic Kingdom was only nominally united. Their system of elected Kings, created rival factions which encouraged foreign intervention by the Byzantines, the Franks, and, finally, the Muslims in internal disputes and in royal elections. Rise of the Muslims In 711, a Muslim army under Jabal Tariq ibn Ziyad (whose name Gibraltar was derived from) crossed into Spain, and killed the king of the Visigoths, who until that time had been ruling Iberia since the day they first arrived there. Ibn Ziyad would return to Morocco eventually, but in the next year Musa ibn Nusair, invaded with a force of 20,000 men. They quickly swept through Spain, aided by the vast Roman road system, and were able to defeat the entire Visogothic Kingdom relatively easily due to the political disarray of the nobility. The Muslim forces spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula and eventually crossed the Pyrenees into the domain of the Franks (in modern day France) to be turned back at Poitiers in 732 by Charles Martel. Despite this, there were a number of holdouts in the North that would be able to not only resist the new invaders, but go on create the modern states of Portugal and Spain, but their time would not come well until half a millenium or so later. Nonetheless, the newcomers left lasting influences on Spanish and Lusitanian culture, the evidence of which can be seen to this day. It is not uncommon to travel throughout Hispanic nations to discover that Arab-style tiling is often used for decoration of houses, or to discover many words in modern-day Spanish and Portuguese which are in fact loanwords from old Arabic. The architectural designs of the Moors were transmitted into Spain itself through Arabised Christians who were known as musta'rabeen or, in Spanish, mozarabes in later years of the Muslim occupation of Spain. The Reconquista While the Reconquest of Spain by the Christians symbolically began even before the Muslims established themselves, with the defeat of a Muslim force at Covadonga by King Pelayo of Leon in 718, Christian resistance was never a concerted effort or had much follow-through, until the middle of the 13th Century. Beginning in the 11thcCentury, like the Visigoths before them, increasing disunity in Islamic Spain would eventually turn the tide on the Muslims. Creating both opportunities for the Christians in the North to take a foothold further and further south, while other rival Muslim invaders from North Africa weakened the local Islamic presence from the other direction. Cordoba itself was defeated in 1216 by Ferdinand III of Castile (known and named after its lands that are dotted with castles, the Alcazar of Segovia originally built in the 11th Century ranks as its most famous, although its foundations were laid as early as Roman times). The final blow came with the marriage between Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469, uniting the two most powerful Spanish Christian Kingdoms. They would take the last Muslim hold out of Granada in 1492 after a long 10 year siege. They would be known as the Catholic Monarchs, in part because of their equality as dual Monarchs, but also because of their fanatical push for Christian fundamentalism and uniformity. They would establish the Inquisition that became known in history for its unspeakable horrors inflicted upon the population to create a thoroughly Christian Spain. Ironically, Tomas de Torquemada, descended from conversos, or Jewish converts to Christianity, would become known in history as the most effective and notorious of the Inquisition's prosecutors. Thousands of Jews and Muslims who didn't want to convert to Christianity were expelled or killed by the bloody pogrom. The Age of Discovery: A New World However, the rule of Isabella and Ferdinand, also ushered in what would be known as the siglo de oro, or Golden Age for Spain. It began with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. This brought the exploration of the New World to the fore. It was further accentuated when Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. Then with the subjugation of two of the greatest civilisations in the Americas, the Aztec (in 1519, by Hernando Cortez) and the Inca (in 1533, by Francisco Pizzaro), the Spanish would acquire enough gold and silver from the new continent to sufficiently depress European demand for both of them for many centuries. This was Spain's Golden Age. Not only did Spain have overseas colonies throughout South America, it also was feeling its way around Asia and North America, and made its influence felt in Burgundy and Sicily. Spanish music, art, literature, dress, and manners from Spain's Golden Age were admired and imitated throughout Europe. They not only set a standard by which the rest of Europe measured its culture but also of its military power. Spain became the military and diplomatic standard-bearer of Christendom. The Spanish fleet's victory over the Turks at Lepanto in 1572. was celebrated throughout the Christian World even among Spain's rivals. They also represented the military might behind the forces of Catholicism, against the tide of Protestantism that began in Germany. Spain monopolised trade with its new colonies and became one of the most powerful nations on earth. However, this protectionism, often very one-sided in draining the mineral wealth from the New World for the benefit of Spain only, hindered development of the colonies and led to a series of expensive wars with England, France and the Netherlands. It became a victim of its own wealth, the flood of gold and silver produced incredible inflation throughout Europe, and in particularly Spain itself. This combined with conspicuous consumption at home, made Spanish goods became too expensive to compete in the international market. In fact, Spain suffered from huge trade deficits even in food production despite Spain being largely agrarian. Also in colonising the world, it saw its net population drop by more then 10% during the 17th Century. Rival European nations and rebellions within the Spanish Empire, continuously drained the Spanish fortunes through unsustainable military spending and prevented any development of the domestic economy or production capabilities at home. In preparing for an invasion of England, the Spanish armada (fleet) was decimated in 1588 at the hands of the English. While the Spanish was able to recover from this loss, and continued to be an effective naval power, the fortunes spend and lost punctuated this period. Spanish prosperity was only a veneer that only could be sustained so long as gold flowed in from their colonial possessions. Category:Incomplete